Israeli soldiers argue with a Palestinian farmer in at-Tuwani, West Bank. Photo: Flickr user JoshHough

The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians is in crisis, with no sign that a key issue — freezing Israeli settlements — can be resolved any time soon.

With that in mind, we want to go beyond the rhetoric and look at how Israelis and Palestinians see their shared land.

Should Israel agree to demands to freeze all settlement building?

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For more on the violence in Gaza, listen to Worldfocus interviews with experts on the ground in Gaza and surrounding regions.

Aaron David Miller, a public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, speaks with Martin Savidge about the potential role of the U.S. in the Gaza conflict, and the difficult choices that President-elect Obama will soon have to make.

Richard Weitz, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, speaks with Martin Savidge about the possibility of an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza.

Michael Wahid Hanna, of the Century Foundation, speaks with Martin Savidge about Egypt’s role in the Hamas-Israel conflict.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has endured conflict for more than a decade in what has been called the deadliest war since World War II. More than 5 million people have died and the country is also the site of the largest and most expensive peacekeeping mission in United Nations history.

In the last year alone, more than a million people have fled the fighting in eastern Congo. For more on the conflict, read our Q&A: History, rebels and crisis in eastern Congo.

Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge hosts a panel featuring a range of voices and perspectives on eastern Congo:

Séverine Autesserre is an assistant professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University. She researches civil wars, peace building and peace keeping, humanitarian aid and African politics. Her upcoming book is called Failing the Congo: International intervention and local violence. Before entering academia, Séverine worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo for humanitarian and development agencies.

Nancee Oku Bright currently heads up the United Nations’ Great Lakes team of the department of peacekeeping operations, which covers MONUC and Burundi. She served in MONUC and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) as chief of the Africa section, as well as chief of the advocacy and public information. A Liberian, she is also the director of the documentary film “Liberia: America’s Stepchild,” which aired on PBS in 2002.

Michael J. Kavanagh is a journalist with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting who reports about post-conflict development across Africa. He has been reporting on Congo for five years and his work has been regularly featured on Worldfocus.

- See Michael’s reports: War in DR Congo: The story of Pascal and Vestine
Rape as a weapon of war in DR Congo
- See Michael’s Q&A: History, rebels and crisis in eastern Congo.
- See Michael’s blog post about covering Congo: Giving a human face to Congo’s conflict.

Conflict has ripped through eastern Congo, uprooting thousands of civilians. But violence has also impacted the country’s mountain gorilla population that lives on land that has absorbed much of the fighting.

This week, rangers returned to the park’s main gorilla sector for the first time in over a year. The rangers are now canvassing the forest to determine how many of the gorillas have survived.

Last year in the park, at least 10 gorillas were killed — several shot in the head. Soldiers also captured baby chimpanzees and monkeys and took them as pets.

Rangers at Virunga National Park’s blog write from key patrol posts about their return to the gorillas.

Nov. 25: Up among the mountain gorillas

Today was an extraordinary day. We launched the gorilla survey to get an accurate assessment of the status and health of Virunga’s mountain gorillas after 15 months of conflict.

With Diddy, Innocent, Pierre, Altor from IGCP, and others, we joined the rangers and trackers who remained behind in the Gorilla Sector and moved into the forest. Within an hour, we had found the nests of the Humba group, and after tracking them for ten minutes we began to hear those wonderful familiar grunts.

We almost fell on Humba himself, sitting under a tree, looking at us wondering what all the fuss was about. Humba is the most laid back of all the silverbacks I know, and his wonderful temperament affects the whole group who were all very relaxed. Diddy and Innocent began their work with the trackers and rangers to try to identify all the members of the group. I won’t pre-empt the results which will be published in about one month, except to say that we have nothing to worry about with the Humba group. They’re in good shape.

I have to go down to Rumangabo tomorrow, as there is still an awful lot to do, but the team is remaining up here to continue the survey.

Nov. 22: [Park Ranger] Innocent Returns to Bukima

This afternoon I accompanied Innocent as he and other Rangers tested the road up to the Bukima Patrol Post. The road hadn’t been used in more than a year so it was very difficult, but in the end we made it to the top.

As you can see from the video I filmed, the Rangers were extremely glad to be back after such a long absence. We are now back in Rumangabo, but we left some trackers behind. The plan is to go back up tomorrow morning with all our equipment and look for the Humba gorilla group in the afternoon. We are all very excited to see how they are doing!

To read more, see the Virunga National Park blog.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photos courtesy of the Virunga National Park blog.